The ground rumbled, cracks spreading like spiderwebs from the hole where Tao Pai Pai had been buried.
With an angry roar, the assassin burst upward, showering the area with dirt and gravel. He landed on his feet, but his composure was visibly cracking.
He looked down at his chest. His brand-new outfit was shredded.
"Unforgivable..." Tao Pai Pai trembled, his face twitching.
"First that filthy brat ruins my clothes with a stone, and now you ruin my second set! Do you have any idea how hard is to find a decent tailor?!"
Chi-Chi shrugged, wiping a speck of dust from her gi.
"My bad. But honestly? I think your tailor scammed you. You should really ask for combat-ready fabric next time."
"You insolent little...!"
Tao Pai Pai snapped.
"DODON RAY!"
The superheated beam of yellow energy erupted from his finger, screaming through the air straight at Chi-Chi's heart.
"Chi-Chi, watch out! That's the move that got me!" Goku yelled.
Chi-Chi tightened her fist and punched the empty air directly in front of the beam.
POW!
The sheer pressure of her punch collided with the energy beam.
There was a sizzling sound, and then—poof—the deadly Dodonpa shattered like glass, dissolving into harmless sparks that drifted away in the wind.
Tao Pai Pai's jaw dropped so low it nearly hit his chest.
His eyes bulged out, staring at his own finger, completely unable to process what he had just seen.
"It... it didn't work? My Dodon ray... you just... punched it away?"
"It's funny, isn't it?"
Chi-Chi said, walking slowly toward him.
She stopped a few feet away, looking him in the eye.
"That sense of powerlessness you feel now… that's what you gave us three days ago."
She tilted her head, her expression serious.
"Pride fades quickly. No matter how high you stand, someone stronger is always waiting."
Tao Pai Pai's shock turned into humiliated rage. He gritted his teeth so hard they audibly creaked.
"You... you lecture me?!" Tao screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
"I am Tao Pai Pai! I am the greatest assassin in the world! You will swallow those words along with your own blood!"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Hoi-Poi Capsule. He threw it on the ground and pressed the button.
POOF!
A cloud of smoke cleared to reveal a niuweidao[1]. Tao snatched it up.
Tao Pai Pai didn't waste time.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, he poured his remaining killing intent into the weapon.
He lunged, swinging the sword in a vicious, high-speed horizontal arc aimed straight at Chi-Chi's neck. The air shrieked as the blade sliced through it.
Chi-Chi's eyes narrowed.
She recognized the danger instantly.
He's coating it with his energy.
Even with her body hardened by Korin's training, blocking a blade fueled by a master assassin's Ki with bare skin was a gamble she wasn't willing to take.
She needed something just as sharp to stop it.
Taking a half-step back to buy herself a microsecond.
Chi-Chi raised her right hand, her fingers flattened and pressed tightly together in a knife-hand position.
She focused her ki, channeling the energy, concentrating it entirely along the outer edge of her palm.
A brilliant, razor-thin edge of white light flared to life around her hand—a Ki Blade.
Just as Tao's sword was about to connect, Chi-Chi swung her glowing hand up to meet it.
CLANG!
The sound that echoed across the Sacred Land wasn't flesh striking metal; it sounded like two steel girders colliding at high speed.
A violent spray of yellow and white sparks erupted from the point of impact.
Tao Pai Pai's eyes went wide with disbelief.
His sword had stopped against the edge of a little girl's bare hand.
"What?! How can you do that?!" Tao screamed, his voice cracking with disbelief as he pressed his weight against the deadlock.
His arms trembled from the resistance.
Chi-Chi peered at him through the shower of sparks, her expression one of utter disdain.
"Drawing a weapon against an unarmed opponent? You're a coward to the core."
She shoved his blade back, forcing him to stumble.
"But then again, why am I surprised? Honor doesn't exist in creatures like you."
"SILENCE! I will chop you into pieces!" Tao roared.
He launched himself into a frenzy of slashes. The air filled with the ringing of metal on energy
CLANG!
CLANG!
SPARK!
Tao swung with the fury of a cornered beast, but Chi-Chi met him blow for blow.
Her hand was parrying the blade.
Up, down, left, right—she deflected his killing strokes.
The assassin was sweating profusely now, his movements becoming ragged and desperate, while Chi-Chi remained cool.
Tao raised the sword high for a final, skull-splitting overhead chop.
As the blade descended, Chi-Chi didn't block.
She stepped in.
With a sharp exhale, she drove her glowing hand perpendicular into the flat of the falling blade.
PING!
The sound was high and sharp.
The top half of the high-quality steel sword snapped off cleanly, spinning through the air before embedding itself in the ground yards away.
Tao Pai Pai stood frozen, staring at the useless, broken hilt in his hand, his mouth agape in horror.
"You..." Tao hissed, trembling with rage.
"I am the ultimate killing machine!I will tear you apart limb from—"
Whoosh.
The threat died instantly in his throat.
Before Tao could even finish his sentence, Chi-Chi was already standing inside his guard, her nose inches from his.
BAM!
Her fist buried itself in his gut before his brain could even send the signal to dodge.
Tao bent double, his eyes bulging, but Chi-Chi wasn't done.
She unleashed a devastating rapid-fire combination.
Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap!
She struck his face, his ribs, his chest, and his jaw so fast it sounded like a machine gun.
Tao Pai Pai, the feared assassin, was reduced to a ragdoll, his head snapping back and forth with every impact, unable to block, unable to breathe, and unable to escape.
"Raaaaaah!" She shouted, delivering a spinning backfist that smashed Tao's nose.
She crouched low, her aura flaring up as she swept his legs out from under him, leaving him suspended in mid-air for a split second.
She leaped up and drove a double-hammer fist down onto his chest, slamming him into the dirt with a crater-forming impact.
Tao Pai Pai lay in the dirt, coughing violently as he tried to push himself up.
He looked up through swollen eyes at Chi-Chi, who stood over him with her fist raised, ready to deliver the final blow.
She is a monster! She is leagues above me. If I continue to fight her head-on, she will kill me.
Tao thought, a cold spike of genuine fear finally piercing through his arrogance.
His pride had been shattered along with his sword. But Tao Pai Pai was a survivor above all else, and he knew that when strength failed, treachery was the only weapon left.
He scrambled to his knees, not in an attack stance, but in a pathetic display of submission.
He threw his hands up in the air and pressed his forehead into the dirt.
"Wait! Please! Stop!" Tao cried out, his voice trembling with practiced desperation.
"I surrender! I give up! You win, okay? You win!"
Chi-Chi paused, her fist hovering in mid-air. She looked down at the groveling man, confused by the sudden shift in demeanor.
"I... I am just a hired gun!" Tao sobbed, squeezing out fake tears.
"I didn't want to kill anyone! It was just a job! I have bills to pay! Please, have mercy on a foolish old man! I'll give you the Dragon Ball! I'll leave and never come back! Just please, don't kill me!"
Chi-Chi blinked, her fighting stance relaxing slightly. She looked down at the assassin with wide, innocent eyes.
"Wait a minute... are you serious? You're really sorry?"
Behind her, Goku scratched his head, looking at Upa.
"Gee, Upa... now that he's crying like that, I don't really know what we're supposed to do. Is he telling the truth?"
Upa hesitated, his grip on his staff loosening just a fraction, confused by the sudden pathetic display of the man who had seemed so invincible moments ago.
But then, a cold smile slowly spread across Chi-Chi's face—a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"You really are a sucker." she said, her voice dropping to a chilling register.
Tao Pai Pai froze, his act slipping for a second.
"H-huh?"
"Do you honestly think that crying changes anything?" Chi-Chi stepped closer, her shadow looming over him.
"You killed a man in front of his own son. You think a few fake tears can fix a mess like that? You've done damage that is far beyond being forgiven."
Tao scrambled back on his knees, sweat pouring down his face.
"W-what does that mean? What... what is going to happen to me?"
Chi-Chi held up her fists, examining them casually.
"Tell you what. Why don't you try to guess? Am I going to smash your face in with my right hand... or my left hand?"
Tao Pai Pai swallowed hard, terror seizing his heart. He looked frantically between her fists.
"Uhh... the left! Just make it quick with the left hand!"
"Bzzzt. Wrong." Chi-Chi said flatly.
"T-then the right! You're going to hit me with the right!"
"Nope." she replied, shaking her head.
Tao's eyes widened, his voice rising to a shriek.
"T-then both?! You're going to hit me with both hands at once?!"
"Ding ding ding! We have a winner." Chi-Chi chirped darkly.
"W-wait!" Tao stammered, trying to buy time as his hand crept toward his pocket.
"Are you going to use your actual hands, or... or are you going to punch the wind again?!"
Chi-Chi narrowed her eyes, her aura flaring up violently.
"You ask too many questions. Like I'd ever dirty my hands touching a worm like you."
She drew both fists back, her arms blurring into invisibility.
"TATATATATATATATATATA!"
Chi-Chi unleashed a torrential barrage of punches into the empty air.
She didn't touch him once, but the sheer atmospheric pressure from her fists created a gatling gun of shockwaves.
Tao Pai Pai was pummeled by invisible cannonballs, his body jerking violently as he was battered from every angle by the compressed air.
He couldn't fall, he couldn't dodge; he was suspended in a vortex of pain, screaming as the wind pummeled him relentlessly.
With a final roar, Chi-Chi pulled her right fist back, the air around it twisting and distorting from the sheer accumulation of pressure.
"HAAAAAAAA!"
She thrust her fist forward one last time.
She didn't touch him, but the resulting shockwave was catastrophic. It hit Tao Pai Pai center-mass with the force of a colliding meteorite.
"GYAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
The assassin was lifted off his feet and launched backward at supersonic speed.
He became a pink and black blur, skipping across the air like a stone over water. He flew over the forest, over the mountains, and higher into the stratosphere.
Goku and Upa shielded their eyes against the sun, watching as the world's greatest assassin was reduced to a tiny, screaming black dot against the blue sky.
A moment later, there was a faint ting of light in the far distance as Tao Pai Pai disappeared completely over the horizon, banished from the Sacred Land of Korin by the sheer force of Chi-Chi's will.
Chi-Chi stood frozen in her follow-through pose for a second, steam rising from her knuckles. Slowly, she exhaled, her aura fading away, and stood upright, brushing a stray hair out of her face.
"Good riddance." She huffed, dusting off her hands as if she had just taken out the trash.
Goku ran over to the edge of the crater where Tao Pai Pai had been standing moments before. Lying in the flattened grass, completely untouched by the shockwaves, was a small, dark satchel.
"Hey, look!" Goku cheered, snatching up the bag and peering inside. He pulled out the Three-Star Ball, grinning ear to ear.
"He dropped the Dragon Balls! Man, are we lucky! If these had flown off with him, we would have had to search the whole world all over again to find them."
Upa didn't care about the balls. He ran straight to Chi-Chi, his eyes shining with absolute hero-worship.
"That was amazing, Chi-Chi!" the little boy shouted, jumping up and down.
"You really are strong! You gave him a beating he'll never forget! You sent him flying like a bad dream!"
Chi-Chi looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers. The steam was still rising faintly from her skin. She blinked, as if waking up from a trance.
"I... I really did, didn't I?" she murmured, a look of genuine surprise crossing her face.
She took a deep breath and lowered her hands, her expression hardening again as she looked at the bag in Goku's hand.
"But... this isn't over." Chi-Chi said, her tone serious.
"Tao Pai Pai was just a hired gun. The Red Ribbon Army is the one pulling the strings, and they're still out there. Now that their assassin is gone, they're going to be angrier than ever."
She looked at Goku.
"We have the balls, but as long as that Army exists, Upa and his father won't be safe. We have to finish this."
[1] Niuweidao: Chinese Saber